Glossary
Term | Definitions |
|---|---|
| Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) | A form of Malware that is advanced enough to mutate and avoid detection via Polymorphism, and persistent enough to work toward the same goal for months or years. Typically leveraged in very large-scale attempts, by nations or large corporations. |
| Application (App) | A software program that runs on a computer or server and allows a user to perform specific tasks; common examples include email, MSFT Office, CRM, and ERP software. |
| Application Programming Interface (API) | A software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API; an interface with specific guidelines for how one software is able to interact with others. |
| Archive Storage | Storage for data that is not actively needed but kept for record-keeping purposes. |
| Automatic Contact Distributor/Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) | Punch in numbers (when there is an automated machine that points you in the right direction). The actual interface that you are touching. Makes it possible for calls to be answered and automatically routed to a specific agent or department within a company. |
| Backup as a Service (BaaS) | A cloud solution that protects the customer’s data, and allows for file or server recovery back to the customer’s premises. May include local (on-prem) backups, serving as an end-to-end backup solution. |
| Bare Metal Server | A physical server with no Hypervisor installed. Often used for high-performance, high-IO workloads such as gaming, video rendering, and big data analytics. |
| Benefits and risks | A deliverable to support the business case and execute internal alignment. Builds the relevant opportunities, constraints, and risks of progress vs Status Quo. |
| Block Storage | Storage that is composed of ones and zeros, with no folder structure imposed. Users need an application to make sense of it. Common access protocols include iSCSI and Fibre Channel. |
| Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) | The trend toward employee-owned devices within a business (as opposed to company-issued devices) including smartphones, tablets, and laptops; requires access to a virtual desktop to accomplish company work. |
| Business Continuity (BC) | A strategy to keep business operations working and uninterrupted at all times, in spite of disasters or failures. |
| Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) | A practice in which a business contract with an external service provider to perform an essential business task. |
| Cabinet | Similar to a rack, but with locking front and rear doors. Typically 42u (rack units) tall. |
| Cage | Secured, customizable steel cage in a data center that can enclose cabinets or racks. |
| Call Flow | The actual map/document represents the flow of the ACD/IVR. |
| Capital Expenditure/Capital Expense (CAPEX) | One-time payment (ex: buying a new headset); a capital expense or capital expenditure where capital (money) has to be approved for a specific project and is commonly depreciated over time. Payment occurs all at once, as opposed to recurring like OPEX. |
| Closed API | Software integration points are locked or controlled by the software developer. |
| Cloud access security broker (CASB) | A cloud access security broker is on-premises or cloud-based software that sits between cloud service users and cloud applications, monitors all activity, and enforces security policies. |
| Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) | A cloud-based delivery model that lets you add voice, video, and messaging features to your existing business software using APIs. |
| Compliance | Federal, state, or local regulations are often specific to certain industries that govern the handling of information. |
| Computer Room Air Conditioning Unit (CRAC) | A cooling device that maintains the temperature, air distribution, and humidity in a data center. |
| Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) | A cloud-based solution that provides companies with all the specialized contact services of an on-prem contact center and uses the provider’s contact center. |
| Content Delivery Network (CDN) | A system of distributed servers that caches web pages and content in order to decrease page loading times for users, by serving them from the CDN server geographically closest to them. Often used for high-traffic or global websites. |
| Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) | A framework for developing IT governance and management practices. |
| Copper | Broadband, Asynchronous (cheaper). |
| Core problems | The first two are our mission to fix in B2B We will continue to expand on understanding what commonalities are and how to fix them, and simply adjust over time as we find patterns: 1. Software stack sprawl 2. Buyer-Seller Gap/ Buying Complexity |
| Customer Engagement Management | Technology that enables businesses to manage, analyze, and optimize their customer journeys. Common capabilities may include digital self-service, multichannel customer support, customer engagement analytics, and content personalization. |
| Customer Experience (CX) | The customer’s perceptions and related feelings are caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels, or products. |
| Customer Relationship Management | Technology for managing a business’s interactions with customers and potential customers. Common Capabilities may include contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, file and content sharing, and dashboard-based analytics. |
| Dedicated Cloud | See Private Cloud. |
| Dedicated Denial Of Service (DDoS) | Attack (ex: when spammers or hackers send in a lot of requests to a server, and it shuts down); a DOS attack that seeks to make a specific network resource unavailable to users initiated by hundreds or thousands of compromised systems (IP addresses). Often used to bring down high-profile websites. |
| Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) | Synchronous |
| Deduplication | A data compression technique that omits duplicate files or parts of files (blocks) and just stores changes (deltas) between files in order to minimize the amount of data stored or transferred. |
| Desktop | The desktop environment and associated OS, application software, and files on a computer. Often used interchangeably with the physical device used to access it. |
| Desktop as a Service (DaaS) | Virtual desktops are delivered as a service from a cloud provider. This abstracts the back-end hardware and software required to deploy VDI and allows customers to pay a simple monthly price to access a virtual desktop from any endpoint device. |
| Digital Employee Experience/end-user experience management software (DEX) | An employee’s holistic experience with the digital workplace provided by IT. |
| Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) | Protects the business and recovers the entire IT environment (servers, storage, network, apps) in the cloud. |
| Disk Backup | Similar to tape backup but data is stored on disks; benefits include faster data transfer, compression, and deduplication, and significantly increased reliability. |
| Domain Name System (DNS) | Making sure users are authenticated (UCaaS). translating human-readable domain names to machine-readable IP addresses. |
| Dynamic Desktop | After logging off, the desktop session is destroyed and recreated with predetermined settings upon login. This allows for more security and provides more control for IT (less for the end user), as opposed to a Static Desktop. |
| Early Termination Fee (ETF) | The fee that you get charged if you cancel a contract early (after everything is installed). |
| eDiscovery | Searching for and locating electronic data to use as evidence in civil or criminal litigation. |
| Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) | A compliance management system for financial institutions, commonly banks. |
| Federal Information Security Modernisation Act (FISMA) | Required all federal agencies to provide security for their information. |
| Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) | Required for federal agencies and cloud service providers that plan to host federal information specifically in the cloud. |
| Fiber | Synchronous |
| File Storage | Storage with a file system, meaning a hierarchy of directories and subdirectories. Users can access files to read or write without using an application. Common access protocols include CIFS/SMB and NFS. |
| Firewall | A physical or virtual appliance that typically sits at the edge of a network, between the LAN and the WAN. It protects against threats by only allowing network ports and traffic that are known to be good, and blocking everything else. |
| First Notice of Loss (FNOL) | As soon as someone puts a claim in. the moment “there has been an issue” to the time they are paid out and receive money from the company. (Insurance Specific) |
| Global File System Storage | A global file system that integrates the cloud storage with the client’s existing storage, allowing all data to remain synchronized between locations. |
| Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act | A regulation for financial institutions to protect consumer financial information. |
| Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) | A national standard to protect the privacy of personal healthcare information. |
| Horizontal work vs Vertical work | Horizontal means investigating and tying the facts, decisions, and stories together. Vertical work is getting deeper and more solidified in specific areas, with the best return on deeper with your future partner/vendor. |
| Hosted Email Archiving | A cloud solution that stores read-only copies of emails and other relevant information in a data center where they are easy to access and search; ideal for auditing purposes. |
| Hybrid Cloud | Any combination of various cloud options, typically connected on the same network. This could include public cloud, private cloud, bare metal servers, or a customer’s on-premises equipment. |
| Hypervisor | A thin layer of software that runs directly on a physical server and abstracts the hardware for the creation of virtual servers, each of which may run its own distinct OS. The hypervisor creates and runs virtual machines. Ex. VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V. |
| Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) | The most basic service offering, providing servers, storage, and network but leaving platform and application management to the client. |
| Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | Paired with an ACD. The actual flows that you can do (the way in which the caller gets to where they need to go). |
| International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9000) | A family of standards for manufacturing and service industries to maintain an effective quality assurance system. |
| International Standard for Information Security (ISO 27001) | A standard for information security management systems. |
| International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) | A standard ensuring that arms and trade data do not leave a certain geographic location. |
| Intrusion Detection System (IDS) | A physical or virtual appliance that monitors network traffic for suspicious activity that may indicate a malicious attack. |
| Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) | A physical or virtual appliance that typically sits behind a Firewall. It analyzes and blocks bad network traffic based on a list of known. |
| Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS;i/o) | The measure of storage performance in terms of input/output or reads/writes per second. |
| Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Certification (LEED Certification) | A rating system developed by the US Green Building Council for green initiatives. |
| Licensing | In regards to software, customers can bring their own or utilize the provider’s SPLA licenses. |
| LMA Formula | Leadership + Management = Accountability |
| Local Area Network (LNA) | Infrastructure that allows you to connect to the WAN. |
| Mailbox Size | The amount of storage per mailbox can be different for different users. |
| Main Distribution Frame (MDF) | The primary hub or demarcation point that interconnects private or public IT and telecommunication lines coming into a building to an internal network via any number of intermediate distribution frames (IDFs). |
| Malware | Malicious software, including viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. |
| Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) | Primarily a contact that is sales-ready, but is not yet ready for direct, personal attention from sales. This comes before SQL. |
| Master Service Agreement (MSA) | A contract that states that you can act on our behalf/negotiate vendors for us… you can work with us, work for us, and work on our behalf. |
| Monthly Recurring Cost (MRC) | How much the customer is billed a month. |
| Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) | The predictable total revenue generated by your business from all the active subscriptions in a particular month. |
| Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) | Connects three locations privately. Very fast with guaranteed speeds. |
| Multitenant Cloud | See Public Cloud |
| National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) | Institute that develops standards (used in both FISMA and FedRAMP compliance). |
| Net Promoter Score (NPS) | Performance score (can vary from industry to industry/company to company). |
| Network Attached Storage (NAS) | A storage device that is accessed over the LAN. Typically used for file shares with access via CIFS/SMB/NFS protocols. |
| Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) | An initiative to decouple network functions from dedicated hardware such as routers, firewalls, and load balancers, using the concept of virtualization. Initially proposed by a group of network service providers. |
| Non-Persistent Desktop | See Dynamic Desktop |
| Non-Recurring Cost (NRC) | Implementation Fee (ex: any training/onboarding). |
| Number of Seats | The number of users that need handsets (Hosted VoIP), mailboxes (Hosted Exchange), or desktops (DaaS). |
| Object Storage | Storage in which all objects (files) are stored in the same namespace (directory), each with a unique identifier to allow for easy retrieval. Good for large amounts of static data, which isn’t frequently changed or retrieved. Accessed over the internet using a REST- or SOAP-based API. See also Block Storage and File Storage. |
| Offsite Backup Storage | Clients often use cloud storage as an offsite backup target. |
| On-Prem | Dedicated product living on-site. |
| Open API | Allows software developers to write code that seamlessly integrates one software with another. |
| Operating Expenditure/Operating Expense (OPEX) | Monthly Recurring Cost. The cost it takes to operate a contact center every month; and expenses like building power, water, and the leasing of space. An expense necessary to operate a business. Billed on an ongoing basis, as opposed to all at once like CAPEX. |
| Operating System (OS) | A collection of software that manages computer hardware resources (e.g. memory, security, I/O) and serves as a platform to run applications on; common examples include Windows and Linux. |
| Original Equipment Manufacturer Agreement (OEM Agreement) | Used by a company that takes components of products from one or more companies in order to build one product which it then sells under its own brand and company name. |
| Outbound Dialer | Technology that enables agents to make outbound calls and view customer data within their CRM for more personalized data. |
| Partnership | Really need to multiply the value of their products and services through relationship-building and communication. Aligned and engaged vendors can deliver a lot of value you don’t have to pay for. |
| Payment Card Industry (PCI) | A standard for organizations that handle card (credit, debit, etc.) information. |
| Penetration Test (PenTest) | A simulated attack on an enterprise network that’s designed to expose security weaknesses that an attacker could leverage. Often required to maintain regulatory compliance such as PCI. |
| Persistent Desktop | See Static Desktop. |
| Plain Old Telephone Service/Public Switch Telephone Network (POTS/PSTN) | A more secure line (ex: Fax, Emergency Line). |
| Platform as a Service (PaaS) | One layer above IaaS, the provider manages the application platform meaning the programming frameworks and languages – providing the customer with an environment to develop applications. |
| Point of Presence (PoP) | Where multiple carriers meet (“Carrier Hotel”). |
| Post-Merger Integration (PMI) | The process of bringing two or more companies together with the aim of maximizing synergies to ensure that the deal lives up to its predicted value. |
| Power | Standard configurations include 120 V, 208 V, or 208 V (3 phase) and 20 A or 30 A. |
| Power Dialing | Continuously dials outbound calls at a fixed rate based on a customized calls-to-agent ratio. Setting the fixed ratio correctly is essential. |
| Power Distribution Unit (PDU) | 1. a floor-mounted power distribution device that feeds a large number of racks or rows of racks in a data center, 2. a rack-mounted device with electrical outlets similar to a power strip that distributes electrical power to devices within a rack; most often there will be two vertical PDU’s in each cabinet providing separate, redundant power to the cabinet. |
| Predictive Dialing | Increases the number of actual connections with customers. Calculates the number of calls to make based on time zones, real-time data, and historical agent stats to ensure the highest call completion rate. |
| Private Branch Exchange (PBX) | How phone calls get from one person to the other (manages routing for inbound and outbound calls). |
| Progress Vs Status Quo | An essential question that needs to be contemplated as early as possible: sometimes this decision can be made early. It can be made early, it allows for a selection process that can get vertical faster. If there’s more work to be done to make the decision of Progress or Status Quo, it means there’s more “horizontal work” to be done. |
| Progressive Dialing | Places call on an adaptable, calls-to-agent basis as representatives become available. Once an agent sets his/her status to “available” the next call is placed. |
| Public Cloud | IT infrastructure (servers, storage, and network) that is virtualized and shared between multiple users (clients), where users typically only pay for what they use. |
| Quality Assurance (QA) | Any process determining whether a product or service meets certain requirements. |
| Quality Check (QC) | A procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufacturing product or performed service adheres to the fined set of quality criteria or meets the requirements of the client or customer. |
| Quarterly Business Review (QBR) | When you sit down with customers on a quarterly basis to review how well you’re contributing to their success. |
| Request For Proposal (RFP) | (CXponent will help create the RFP or clarify the RFP and validate that they are correct – we help manage the process). |
| Resources | To help create the right partnership with our clients, we want to have a shared understanding of what resources are needed in the project, which usually spans: Time – Attention: Day-to-day focus required to pay attention to details and maintain execution – Calendar Time: How much time do we have? IT & Business Alignment How well aligned are the two organizations? Understanding the future of the business and historical context is valuable, especially if tribal knowledge critical for risk reduction Skills & Expertise In building the right expertise for the project, what skills will be needed? Product, Architecture & Engineering, Security, Finance/FP&A, Program Delivery, Procurement, etc Financial Capital Capex: For risks that we can control, what is worth funding extra resources to mitigate those risks? Operating Expense: What are the hurdles to clearing the ROI for the project? Project Delivery Capacity Program and Project Management: How much delivery and coordination resources are available Operating Model: What will the balance of insourced vs. outsourced be? Vendor Management Do you have the right skills and attention to get the most out of your vendor? If you’re hoping to build a long-term partnership, how much time & resources will you invest in the relationship? |
| Robotic Process Automation (RPA) | A software technology that makes it easy to build, deploy, and manage software robots that emulate humans’ actions interacting with digital systems and software. |
| Safe Harbor (EU) | Protects personal information of EU citizens when conducting business with US organizations. |
| Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) | Is ready for direct sales follow-up and should be made a priority to engage with one on one. This comes after MQL. |
| Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) | A standard designed to protect shareholders from fraudulent accounting within enterprises. |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | The process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance, and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant, and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better. |
| Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) | A framework for a network architecture that brings cloud-native security technologies—SWG, CASB, ZTNA, and FWaaS in particular—together with wide area network (WAN) capabilities to securely connect users, systems, and endpoints to applications and services anywhere. |
| Service-Level Agreement (SLA) | Sets the expectations between the service provider and the customer and describes the products or services to be delivered; a contract. |
| Shared Services Center (SSC) | The entity responsible for the execution and the handling of specific operational tasks, such as accounting, human resources, payroll, IT, legal, compliance, purchasing, and security. |
| Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB) | A business that, due to its size, has different IT requirements — and often faces different IT challenges — than do large enterprises, and whose IT resources (usually budget and staff) are often highly constrained. Small businesses are usually defined as organizations with fewer than 100 employees; midsize enterprises are those organizations with 100 to 999 employees. |
| Software as a Service (SaaS) | A method of software delivery and licensing in which software is accessed online via a subscription, rather than bought and installed on individual computers. |
| Software stack sprawl | Drives inefficient data and decision-making, operating complexity, and spend. It makes the employee experience more challenging; through complexity and employee distraction. |
| Software-Defined Wide-Area Network / Networking (SD-WAN) | A virtual WAN architecture that allows enterprises to leverage any combination of transport services – including MPLS, LTE, and broadband internet services – to securely connect users to applications. |
| Spam | A method of distributing Malware that involves sending emails to large, indiscriminate groups of people. |
| Spear Phishing | A method of distributing Malware via email which involves targeting a specific group or business, by posing as an individual or business that is known and trusted. |
| Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) | A standard that replaces SAS 70 as the official regulation for reporting on service organizations. Can be Type 1 (an assessment for a specific point in time), or Type 2 (an assessment over a period of time, typically six months). |
| Static Desktop | Stays running all the time, saving users’ preferences, data, and session info between logins, just like a traditional desktop. Allows for customization on a per-user basis, as opposed to a Dynamic Desktop. |
| Storage Area Network (SAN) | High-speed sub-network of shared storage devices with block-based storage. Typically used for production applications. |
| Tape Backup | A backup option where data is copied to physical tapes and typically shipped to an offsite facility; in the event of a disaster, the entire IT infrastructure must be rebuilt before the tapes are copied back, at which point they are prone to failure. |
| TCO Baseline | (Total Cost of Operating; Hard Costs: These are deliverables tailored to support the decision-making process and will consider the products, services, and resources required to operate. The breadth is determined by project type and should include all relevant inputs that are associated with the decisions. |
| TCO Comparison | (Hard Costs): Using the TCO Baseline, we create an analysis against the quotes and options in the evaluation. As a part of the comparison, we will also add future costs and limitations of staying in Status Quo. |
| Tech Stack | All the technologies that make something up. |
| Technical Debt | The implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. This can occur from Software Stack Sprawl or from lagging investment and a preference toward Status Quo. |
| Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) | The overall cost of a product or service throughout its life cycle. This calculation method takes into account both direct and indirect costs. |
| Trust | Is choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. |
| Unified Communications (UC) | Integration of real-time (instant messaging, telephony, video conferencing) and non-real-time (integrated voicemail, email, sms, fax) communication services. |
| Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) | Becoming synonymous with Hosted VoIP, although it may technically imply more avenues of communication. |
| Validation | Confirms that component technologies can be incorporated into a complete system solution and that system performance and operation are met under anticipated operating scenarios. |
| Virtual Desktop Infrastructure | The hardware, software, and other resources required to host a desktop within a virtual machine running on a centralized server, which can then be accessed remotely via any web-enabled device. This solution can be implemented in-house by customers but requires deep technical expertise and large upfront and ongoing costs. |
| Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) | Delivers desktop images over a network to endpoint devices, enabling users to access their desktops from anywhere. |
| Virtual Machine (VM) | A virtual server running on a physical server, is made possible by using a Hypervisor. |
| Virtual Private Cloud | A subset of Public Cloud, in which the customer has control to provision VMs and allocate resources within a resource pool. Each customer’s environment is segregated on its own VLAN(s). |
| Virtualization | A technique used to aggregate computing resources and increase their utilization, for example, dividing a physical server into multiple virtual servers, using a Hypervisor. |
| Voice as a Service (VaaS) | See Hosted VoIP. |
| Voice over Internet Protocol (Hosted VoIP) | A cloud solution in which the service provider manages all VoIP equipment, servers, and services and in most cases also delivers both local and long-distance phone services back to client offices. |
| Vulnerability Scan | A software scan of hardware and software on an enterprise network that’s designed to find security holes, such as outdated software versions. Typically outsourced, and often required for regulatory compliance. |
| Web Application Firewall (WAF) | A physical or virtual appliance designed specifically to protect web servers and applications from layer 7 attacks, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and session hijacking. |
| Wide Area Network (WAN) | The pathway from the wires outside your building to the network (the network that connects you to the internet). |
| Wide Area Network Optimization | Used to increase the efficiency of data transfer over wide area networks (WANs) like the internet or MPLS. Typically accomplished with a hardware appliance at each location. |
| Work From Anywhere (WFA) | Employees work remotely. Their location is not tied to the physical location of company offices. |
| Workforce Management (WFM) | A whole suite of tools (being able to mentor people). |
| Workforce Optimization (WFO) | Tool of Workforce Management Technology that provides businesses with functionality that may include recruitment and onboarding, interaction evaluation and improvement, time management, forecasting, scheduling, etc. |
| Workload | The demand of an application or process exerted on a processing environment. |
| Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) | An IT security solution that provides secure remote access to an organization’s applications, data, and services based on clearly defined access control policies. |